pasta
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pasta
1870–75; < Italian < Late Latin. See paste
Explanation
Pasta is any Italian style of noodle, including spaghetti, ziti, and macaroni. Your favorite type of pasta might be fettuccine, especially when it's served in a creamy Alfredo sauce. Pasta refers to the noodle, or to the dish that contains it, like vegetable lasagna or spaghetti carbonara. Most pasta is made from semolina flour and water, and often eggs. The stiff dough is rolled very thin and then cut into shapes or long ribbons. It can be cooked from this soft, fresh state, or (more commonly) dried, packaged, and sold. Pasta is an Italian word (surprise, surprise), from Late Latin, which means "dough or paste."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Emma Robins, from Reading, says broccoli hidden in pesto pasta is a favourite for her three-year-old son Alfred, as well as veg pulsed into pasta sauces.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Many families are buying basic groceries like rice, meat and pasta on credit via a government program.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
A pasta PSA: After a yearslong hiatus, Olive Garden is selling 10,000 Never-Ending Pasta Passes on Thursday, entitling buyers to 13 weeks of unlimited pasta, soup, salad, and breadsticks.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
Up front, it was the ideal dry-goods shop: good boxes of fussy pasta and cavatappi, sleeves of biscotti, plastic-wrapped anise pizzelle, a counter where you could order hulking sandwiches and tiny cups of coffee.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026
It’s a level of pasta you don’t even understand, I promise you.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
Its sprawling, old factory and corporate office in Gardena is now churning out protein-fortified pastas for Angelenos who want more bang for their bowls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2025
Visitors to Puglia, a major producer of durum wheat, can try handmade pastas in a variety of shapes, paired with broccoli rabe, sea urchin and even a horse ragù.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025
On his restaurant's board of pastas, he offers cacio e pepe with lime - a variation.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2025
But nowadays, the term is just likely to describe the often-smaller Parmesan crisps found in salads, pastas or elsewhere.
From Salon ● Mar. 15, 2025
There are at least four giant containers of pastas and two massive meatball subs on the table, not counting the empty packaging that my brothers already cleared out.
From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
